Sarah Kay Moll's blog on writing

The first of many words

I wrote a million words last year. I don’t have brilliant and profound advice to give, on how I did it, or even if it’s something worth trying to do. But I can tell you what it was like, the best year of my life.

This is going to sound trite, but I got there by putting one word after another. It’s a little like walking, except that I trip more often. To be fair, it’s very difficult to see where I’m going.

There are drafts I’m too embarrassed to let my mother see. This is a mother who, if brought crude macaroni art by a full grown adult, would think it was beautiful. That’s the stumbling start out of the running blocks for me. Sub-macaroni art creativity.

So I wrote it again. And again. And again. It’s easier for me to fill a blank page than meticulously tend a full one. And with the smug benefit of distance and hindsight, I can tell those early attempts were beyond salvation.

I worked six to eight hours a day, at a minimum, during the year of a million words. Most writers aren’t lucky like that, they don’t get the gift of time the way I did. That gift let me eat, sleep, and breathe this story, my beloved world, my dear characters. That’s the secret, I guess, to the million words. Love and time. A story to tell. And a lot of falling down.

I promise not to fill this blog with a million words. But I will say this is not the first draft of this post. It may not even be the last. We’ll see…